"The next generation of Massachusetts Democrats is knocking on the door. On Tuesday, will voters let them in? It can be an uphill battle for younger hopefuls to break through, but the 30- and 40-somethings on Tuesday’s Democratic primary ballot are buoyed by a national trend, and their contests echo a generational divide in the party between its longtime stalwarts and upstart contenders, party members said....."
Oh, they went out and found some Republicans, too.
It's a fun thing to do, even if you know the outcome is rigged (the kicking of a dead horse never stops).
"Under Trump, labor protections stripped away" by Katie Johnston Globe Staff September 03, 2018
Like many other Obama-era realities, the rats may not survive the Trump administration.
In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the union tradition of using giant inflatable rodents to protest employers using nonunion contractors is protected free speech, but Peter Robb, a Trump appointee who took over as the federal agency’s general counsel in November, is looking to reverse the decision, according to NLRB and union attorneys.
That’s just one of several efforts to make the agency more employer-friendly, reflecting the administration’s antipathy to workers’ rights, labor advocates say.
They will let you fly a blimp of London’s mayor in a bikini, though.
“This has been a terrible 18 months-plus for working people in this country,” said Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s an unprecedented attack on workers.”
Employer-focused groups, on the other hand, say the recent spate of pro-business actions are restoring a balance that was tipped unfairly
Oh, time for a break (turn-in page B11).
If you hope to find some peace.....
[flip to below fold]
.... you need to go to Penikese Island:
"On speck of land, drug recovery program looks to take root" by Brian MacQuarrie Globe Staff September 02, 2018
PENIKESE ISLAND — This grassy speck of the Elizabeth Islands, 14 miles from Woods Hole, served a century ago as a leper colony on the fringe of Buzzards Bay. Shunned and stigmatized, its infected outcasts roamed the island behind locked gates that separated them from the healthy.
And will do so again.
Their graves are marked by small, simple stones, a testament to their lonely place apart. Now, Penikese might become a way station for others who are marginalized, this time as a 75-acre refuge for those fighting opioid abuse.
“It would be a jarring change here. It takes people out of their own heads,” said Ted Doyle, a director of a nonprofit group that sees a healing balm in the island’s beauty and quiet. “You’re not bombarded by the stimuli and pressures that got you involved in the first place.”
The group, called the Penikese Island School, is seeking to build a year-round residential center on the unpopulated island, where men over 18 years old can continue their recovery free of distraction after completing detox elsewhere.....
They will lift you out of that hole.
--more--"
I must admit, it's better than the other kind of peace.
Those links are broken forever, and some texts you may want to keep.
At least they have a bed for you.
The only question is who gets the better bed, and there is only one rule: don't Betof while in bed (too late!).
Oh, yeah, and no candles.
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"Kavanaugh approval could transform the Supreme Court" by Adam Liptak New York Times September 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — Most Supreme Court appointments are in a way inconsequential. A conservative replaces a conservative, a liberal replaces a liberal, and the court’s basic direction is unchanged. That is not the case with the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whose Senate confirmation hearings will begin Tuesday. Kavanaugh is considerably more conservative than the justice he would replace, Anthony Kennedy, but there is a more subtle, and important, reason that President Trump’s pick of Kavanaugh could remake the court. His confirmation would result in a rare replacement of the court’s swing justice, moving Chief Justice John Roberts — a much more reliably conservative vote than Kennedy — to the court’s ideological center.
That will be this week's ma$$ media focus.
It has been more than 80 years since a chief justice was the swing vote. If Roberts assumes that position, legal scholars said, he will lead a solid five-member conservative majority that would most likely restrict access to abortion, limit the use of race-conscious decisions in areas like college admissions, uphold voting restrictions, expand gun rights, strike down campaign finance regulations, and give religion a greater role in public life.
While Roberts, 63, would represent a sharp change as the swing justice, that does not mean that the court will make a sudden leap to the right. Roberts is generally inclined to move in incremental steps, and he cares about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy and prestige.....
--more--"
"GOP lawyer caught in crossfire on Kavanaugh, Russia probe" by Lisa Mascaro Associated Press September 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — Bill Burck is a Republican insider being pushed into the limelight by two of the biggest political dramas in Washington: the Russia investigation of Robert Mueller and the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
He’s a lawyer for current and former Trump White House officials who have been touched by the Russia probe. As George W. Bush’s longtime public records lawyer, he’s in charge of culling documents for the Senate from Kavanaugh’s White House years. He’s also Kavanaugh’s friend and a former deputy at the Bush White House.
That makes Burck, 47, ‘‘triply-conflicted,’’ say some Democrats. They have denounced the lawyer’s role in the unusual and potentially precedent-setting arrangement to expedite the gathering of Kavanaugh’s government records before Senate confirmation hearings that start Tuesday. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Republicans are ‘‘cherry-picking’’ what Kavanaugh records are available. He called it ‘‘a disservice to the American people.’’
Burck’s allies see in the Yale-educated lawyer a straight-shooting, skilled professional who cares less about partisan battles than providing the best legal representation possible.
Burck says his work reviewing Kavanaugh’s records has little to do with representing Donald Trump-world clients in Mueller’s investigation.
‘‘I think partisanship may be getting in the way of rational thought,’’ he said.
The weeks ahead are not the type of public spotlight Burck necessarily seeks. While he gravitates to high-profile cases, Burck appears to prefer a behind-the-scenes role. Those who know the New England native from his days as a clerk to retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recall a bright but laid-back colleague.
‘‘He’s a pretty rare combination of book smarts and good people skills and good judgment,’’ said attorney Jim Bennett, who was a fellow Kennedy clerk in the late 1990s.
Burck’s private-practice caseload reads like a legal-thriller index. He was lead counsel to FIFA in the international football association bribery scandal and for insurance giant AIG over claims it misled the federal government during the 2008 finance crisis. Burck now represents White House counsel Don McGahn, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and former chief of staff Reince Priebus in the Mueller probe.
Yeah, McGahn was so last week.
--more--"
Surely he is a good enough lawyer to handle one more case:
"Michael Flynn is cooperating with Mueller and eager to have case wrap up, court hears?" by Spencer S. Hsu and Rosalind Helderman Washington Post July 11, 2018
WASHINGTON — In Michael Flynn’s first appearance in federal court since pleading guilty seven months ago, his lawyers confirmed that he continues to work with the government and is eager to be sentenced and wrap up his case, but it was no clearer after Tuesday’s hearing when President Trump’s former national security adviser’s federal case will conclude.
He is being represented by who?
Flynn’s presence in court in Washington served to puncture ongoing speculation by conservative media that Flynn’s prosecution is falling apart and that the retired Army lieutenant general may withdraw his guilty plea in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Flynn admitted in December to lying to the FBI about contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, becoming one of the first Trump associates to cooperate — and the highest-ranking official charged — in Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Flynn attorney Robert Kelner told the judge his cooperation agreement with prosecutors remains in effect.
‘‘General Flynn is eager to proceed [to sentencing] when it is possible. With the cooperation agreement, it really is up to the government to make that determination,’’ Kelner said.
Flynn has become an important exhibit for some Trump supporters who argue the former general was mistreated by the FBI as part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to undermine the president.
He was the first one that the outgoing Obama administration outed through their spying on the campaign program, and it is the an oft-forgotten component of the Obama spying scandal.
Some Republicans in Congress have been questioning whether Flynn was pressured unfairly to plead guilty.
Happens all the time (Cohen).
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington called for the hearing after the defense and prosecutors jointly asked him on June 29 to begin sentencing preparations, while at the same time saying it still was too soon to set sentencing given the ‘‘status’’ of the ongoing investigation.
Sullivan asked why he should break with his usual practice, which is to set a sentencing date at the same time he launches the pre-sentencing review. Dissatisfied with both sides’ response, Sullivan directed Flynn to come to court.
Sullivan also said he wanted a chance to meet Flynn for the first time and get to know the parties before sentencing. A different Washington judge, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, took Flynn’s plea Dec. 1, before recusing himself for undisclosed reasons.
The pre-sentencing report is an investigation into whether a person’s background may warrant a harsher or more lenient sentence, takes 70 to 90 days to prepare, and is a necessary step in the federal system before sentencing. However, prosecutors are not required to set a sentencing date even after the report is complete.....
--more--"
Related:
(Besides the Russian ambassador, Flynn, at the request of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, contacted several other foreign officials to urge them to delay or block a UN resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements, says evidence from e-mails which were obtained from someone who had access to transition team communications -- meaning the Obama administration was spying on the opposition worse than Nixon ever did and there is evidence of Israeli interference the during the 2016 transition:
(According to prosecutors, he discussed with Kislyak an upcoming UN Security Council vote on whether to condemn Israel’s building of settlements. At the time, the Obama administration was preparing to allow a Security Council vote on the matter. Mueller’s investigators have learned through witnesses and documents that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asked the Trump transition team to lobby other countries to help Israel, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. Investigators have learned that Flynn and Kushner took the lead in those efforts. Mueller’s team has e-mails that show Flynn saying he would work to kill the vote, the people briefed on the matter said. According to the filings, Flynn consulted with multiple senior Trump officials during the transition. One adviser, described in court documents as a “very senior member” of the transition team, directed Flynn in December to reach out to Kislyak and lobby him about a United Nations resolution on Israeli settlements. People familiar with the investigation identified the adviser as Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner lawyer Abbe Lowell declined to comment.)
-- and yet here is the Washington ComPost telling us about the shrinking profile of Jared Kushner (it's called deception, folks).
Whatever he gets, Trump will pardon him.
"Alleged Russian agent spent months seeking a payday in jet fuel deal" by Matthew Rosenberg, Michael LaForgia and Andrew E. Kramer New York Times September 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — For the young Russian gun rights activist studying in the United States, it would have been an unimaginably rich payday: $1 million to help broker the sale of Russian jet fuel to an American middleman. All she had to do was secure the fuel.
Looks like an entrapment!
So a year later, the activist, Maria Butina, 29, is in a jail cell outside Washington, awaiting trial. Butina, supported by Russian intelligence, managed to infiltrate conservative groups and advance Moscow’s interests in the United States, prosecutors say. US prosecutors accuse her of being a covert Russian agent, reached out to contacts in her homeland — and turned on the charm. In a July 2017 e-mail, she told one man his passport photo was “a handsome one.”
I was wondering where she has been.
In their telling, she used gun rights to gain a toehold in US conservative circles and then struck up a romance with a far older Republican operative to open the doors wider. She has denied the allegations.
Butina’s efforts to deal in Russian jet fuel, detailed in hundreds of pages of previously unreported e-mails, were notable not just for their whiff of foreign intrigue but for whom they involved: David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association and a prominent leader of the conservative movement; Keene’s wife, Donna, a well-connected Washington lobbyist; and Butina’s boyfriend, Paul Erickson, who ran Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1992 presidential campaign.
I'm smelling something all right.
Their attempt to secure the fuel deal illustrates a reality that investigators have had to navigate in bringing a federal case against Butina. During her time in the United States, she surrounded herself not only with high-profile conservatives but with dubious characters who seemed bent on making a fast buck — and it was not always easy to tell one from the other.
Butina had no experience in the oil business, yet jumped into a scheme that hinged on her securing huge amounts of jet fuel — nearly double what all of Russia’s refineries export in a month.
Erickson did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the Keenes.
What about the Kochs (or Koch)?
Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, said the fuel deal was “just further evidence that she wasn’t here on any mission on behalf of the Russian Federation. She was essentially operating on her own account.”
--more--"
Imagine if she had been dealing in uranium!
"John Kerry doesn’t rule out a bid for president in 2020" by Felicia Sonmez Washington Post September 02, 2018
WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State John Kerry isn’t shutting the door to a second presidential bid, more than a decade after his narrow loss to President George W. Bush in 2004.
In an interview with CBS News, Kerry, who represented Massachusetts in the Senate for 28 years and was secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s second term, declined to say ‘‘no’’ when asked whether he might run for the White House in 2020. Kerry said he’s planning to hit the campaign trail for other Democrats ahead of the November midterm elections.
‘‘I think that’s the most important work we can do right now, is trying to elect people on a national basis and restore the leadership that the country needs,’’ Kerry told ‘‘Face the Nation’’ host Margaret Brennan on Sunday. Kerry was on the program to discuss his new memoir, ‘‘Every Day Is Extra.’’
In 2004, Bush won with 286 electoral votes to Kerry’s 252. The popular-vote margin between the candidates was slim — only about 3 million votes, or three percentage points, separated the two — and many Democrats lamented that Kerry would have taken the White House had he not narrowly lost the key swing state of Ohio.
That was another Bush steal, and history also proves Trump should have won.
Not that it would have mattered. Kerry's main campaign point in 2004 was he could do a better job running the empire.
One thing Kerry does have going for him is occasionally pissing off the Zioni$T overlords, to the point where they break his leg (fall on a bike indeed!) but he still goes ahead with the Iran deal while being one of the few U.S. officials to grouse about the treatment of Palestinians.
After his loss, Kerry returned to the Senate and later took a pass on running for president in 2008. In announcing his decision at the time, he acknowledged that he ‘‘came close, certainly close enough to try again,’’ but he ultimately viewed the Senate as the place where he could be most effective in opposing the Bush administration’s foreign policy, particularly on the war in Iraq.
Which Kerry voted for before he was against it.
If Kerry were to jump into the 2020 Democratic fray, he would have plenty of company. More than two dozen potential candidates are testing the presidential waters, including former vice president Joe Biden, Senators Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz, and Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in her case against President Trump.
Working against Kerry is the fact Democratic primary voters have been supporting women and minorities over white men at unprecedented rates this year. Many among the new crop of Democrats are also calling for generational change at the top of the party, a trend that could have repercussions in the race for the 2020 White House nomination. Kerry will be 76 by Election Day 2020.
Yeah, I think he missed his chance. He should have challenged the election harder.
Then again, look on the bright side: John Edwards wasn't vice president.
Of course, anyone would have been an improvement on the guy who held the office at that time.
Sunday was not the first time Kerry has mentioned a possible bid. In January, an Israeli newspaper reported he had told Palestinian officials he was considering a second White House run.
News of Kerry’s remarks Sunday prompted some observers to voice skepticism about his chances, with a few sharing tongue-in-cheek suggestions that other unsuccessful White House hopefuls should join the race, as well.
Eve Peyser, a politics reporter for Vice, tweeted: ‘‘John F. Kerry should run. Al Gore, too. Let’s toss Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich into the ring as well. And don’t forget about Hillary! Spice things up with some John Edwards. And if Michael Dukakis [is] still alive, him too.’’ (Dukakis is alive at 84.)
Others highlighted the assets that Kerry would bring to the race.
Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist who previously worked on Kerry’s campaigns and as a member of his Senate staff, said that although it’s too soon to speculate about 2020 presidential prospects, ‘‘there’s an advantage to having gone through the process once’’ and come close to winning.
Like the late senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizon, Marsh said, Kerry returned to the Senate after losing the White House and played a key role in shaping US policy before going on to serve as secretary of state.
They didn't lose the White House! They never won it!
And although the elections from 2008 to 2018 have underscored the Democratic Party’s diversity and inclusivity, that shouldn’t preclude certain candidates jumping in the race, she said.
That's what will sink his campaign.
‘‘I don’t think there’s any prescription to what kind of person — based on gender and race and age — is the best person to face whomever the Republican nominee is,’’ Marsh said. ‘‘The great thing about campaigns is you find out what kind of candidate a person is, and more importantly, what kind of person. So, who is the best person to lead this country in 2020?’’
The CBS interview also brought to the fore some of the underlying tensions between Trump and Kerry on foreign policy. The two sparred earlier this year over Trump’s dismantling of the Iran nuclear deal, with the president accusing Kerry on Twitter of ‘‘shadow diplomacy’’ following reports the former secretary of state had held behind-the-scenes meetings and phone calls with key players.
‘‘I didn’t negotiate; I spoke out, and I will always exercise my right to speak out,’’ Kerry said in defending his conversations.
He took aim at Trump for what he said were ‘‘dishonest tweets’’ in which the president claimed Kerry had never threatened to walk away from the table in his negotiations with Iran.
‘‘More often than not, he really just doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’’ Kerry said. ‘‘He makes things up, and he’s making that up as he has other things.’’
Kerry also criticized Trump’s mercurial diplomatic style, warning that ‘‘there are certain times where unpredictability invites an overreach by a country.’’
So what false flag is in the works for the September 11 anniversary, John?
--more--"
He probably has a much chance as McCain of being president.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Did you want to stay for the eulogy?
"Pope Francis’ accuser turns up the pressure with more claims" by Jason Horowitz New York Times September 02, 2018
ROME — The archbishop who accused Pope Francis of covering up a cardinal’s sexual misconduct has escalated his offensive with new, detailed accusations that put increasing pressure on a pontiff who the archbishop and his supporters say has misled the faithful and should resign.
Maybe if Kerry had used that tactic he would have been president!
The accuser, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, initially said he would turn off his phone and disappear into hiding for fear of his safety, but he then made a series of new accounts in conservative Roman Catholic news outlets.
We all know how hard is turning off that phone.
In a new letter published late Friday by the conservative website LifeSiteNews, the archbishop gave his version of events leading up to the pope’s controversial September 2015 meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses.
His description contradicted the Vatican’s own account of that private meeting, maintaining that Francis’ lieutenants lied to the public about the encounter, which threatened to eclipse the pope’s entire trip to the United States that month.
A letter by Viganò made public last weekend alleged that the Vatican hierarchy was complicit in covering up accusations that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused seminarians and that Pope Francis knew about the abuses years before they became public.
It also said that rather than punishing the cardinal, Francis empowered him to help choose powerful American bishops.
Viganò has aligned himself with a conservative group of powerful prelates, in both the Vatican and the United States, who have seized on the clerical sex abuse scandal to try to damage Francis and his agenda. They believe the pope is abandoning the church’s rules and traditions through his shift away from culture-war issues like abortion in favor of an emphasis on inclusion, including toward gays, whom Viganò and his allies blame for pedophilia in the church.
Maybe his agenda should be damaged!
The archbishop writes that he was spurred to weigh in again by a New York Times article this past week quoting a Chilean abuse survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz. Cruz said Francis had told him that Viganò sneaked Davis into the Vatican Embassy in Washington for a private meeting in 2015 and that the pope did not know who she was or why she was controversial.
So was I, when they admitted there was in fact a Deep State.
Viganò did not return a request for comment Saturday, but in the new letter, he lays out in detail his version of events in which he says he personally briefed the pope on Sept. 23, 2015, giving him a memo, which he also provided to LifeSiteNews, summarizing the case of Davis.
He claims that the pope “immediately appeared in favor” of a meeting but seemed wary of the political implications, asking the ambassador to clear it with his top adviser, Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. That night, in a Washington hotel, Viganò says, he was met instead by now-Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was then Francis’ chief of staff, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister.
Viganò says that he then provided them with the memo, and after Gallagher verified that the meeting presented no legal obstacles, he “gave an unconditionally favorable opinion that the pope should receive Davis.”
Viganò says he informed the pope of that decision the next morning, and “the pope then gave his consent.”
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a former spokesman of the Vatican, and his English-language assistant, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, issued a joint statement late Sunday disputing Vigano’s claims about the encounter.....
Hey “one of them is lying.”
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So who do you believe?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
‘Time for this war in Afghanistan to end,’ says departing US commander
The time to end it was eight years ago.
Of course, it is all Pakistan's fault (the Pentagon wants to use the $300 million for other purposes. Why not just give it back to the Treasury?).
Duterte in Israel, first visit by a Philippines president
The pre$$ is mute regarding the autocratic thug (not Duterte).
If the Germans are so lazy, how did they kill..... never mind.
Libya announces state of emergency in Tripoli The fighting erupted last week has killed some 39 people, including civilians.
Egypt has already begun preparing the graves.
Suicide car bombing in Somalia’s capital kills at least 6
Maybe the withdrawal is premature, 'eh?
Besides, you don't need wars to wreck a country.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Evidence won’t silence senator’s critics on ancestry issue, observers say" by Jeremy C. Fox Globe Correspondent September 02, 2018
US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to show that her contested claims of Native American ancestry never benefited her career is unlikely to have a major impact on her reelection in November — or her potential presidential run in 2020, Massachusetts political observers said Sunday.
Warren, who sometimes has shied away from addressing the controversy over her undocumented claims of Cherokee and Delaware heritage, sat down for an extensive interview with The Boston Globe and released what she said were all the records she had from her years teaching at five law schools and as a visiting professor at another.
A Globe review of those documents and more than 100 interviews with former colleagues and people who had roles in hiring Warren found no evidence that claiming minority status had helped her get prestigious jobs at the University of Pennsylvania or Harvard Law School, but that conclusion won’t silence Warren’s fiercest critics — including the one who sits in the Oval Office, said Jeffrey M. Berry, a longtime political science professor at Tufts University.
“As far as President Trump goes, The Boston Globe investigation will have no consequence. He will continue to taunt her with the P-word as long as he thinks it’s to his advantage,” Berry said, referring to “Pocahontas,” Trump’s derisive nickname for Warren. “His base likes it,” Berry continued, “and it just reflects his general strategy to taunt the opposition as much as he can.”
Berry said the results of the Globe’s review may show “that these accusations are not going to derail her [potential presidential] candidacy, but this is going to rise again in 2020” if she runs.
It's time for her to come face-to-face with her heritage, bite the bullet, and take the DNA test.
The answer won't take long.
Peter Ubertaccio, a political science professor at Stonehill College in Easton, said continuing to attack Warren on the issue could backfire for some of her critics — but probably without a major impact. “I suspect it’s all around the edges,” he said.
On Sunday, an independent candidate, Shiva Ayyadurai, said he believed that his successful effort to draw attention to Warren’s “lack of integrity” spurred the Globe’s review, but he disputed its findings.
“My position stands,” he said. “Elizabeth Warren lied to get into Harvard, and it’s unfortunate that the Globe is colluding with her to try to whitewash the facts.”
Political observers said the opinions of Warren — negative and positive — have solidified, and in this age of hyperpartisanship, few voters would be swayed by new information.....
--more--"
Going to have a pow-wow about whether she should go on the warpath.
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"Three men arrested after police find drugs, cash during traffic stop in Arlington" by Adam Sennott Globe Correspondent September 02, 2018
Three men were arrested after officers found drugs and cash in their car during a traffic stop in Arlington on Saturday night, police said.
Jaylon S. Butler, 23, Malachi Barnett, 23, and Branden D. Taylor, 24, all of Everett, were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, Arlington police said in a statement. Butler was also charged with unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
At about 10 p.m., Arlington police were notified that a gray 2010 Honda CR-V was involved in a road rage incident in Chelsea in which one of the occupants brandished a gun, according to the statement. The vehicle was later stopped and searched in Arlington.
During the search, officers discovered $25,000 in cash, and about 12 ounces of marijuana packed in small plastic baggies, as well as a digital scale and a 150-count box of resealable plastic bags, police said. No gun was found.
Although recreational marijuana use is legal in Massachusetts, the law states that individuals can only carry one ounce at a time.
The 12 ounces found on the three men could be used to make up to 800 marijuana cigarettes, police said. It is also illegal to sell marijuana without a license.....
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Must be why they drove the car into the pond.
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(continued from page A1):
toward labor under Obama.
That was when this became no longer a labor of love.
The president’s first appointee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, has already helped tip the scales against workers as part of the majority in two rulings. In the Janus decision, the court reversed 40 years of precedent to find that public sector unions can’t charge nonmembers fees, despite the fact that they benefit from union protections. In another major decision, the court ruled that companies can force workers to settle disputes through private arbitration, rather than joining together to take legal action.
Related: Teachers Unions Scramble to Save Themselves
It was a big setback for them, and the attempt to soften the impact failed.
Trump’s latest Supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation hearings start this week, is expected to further solidify the court as pro-employer, and at the NLRB, which protects the rights of private sector employees to organize and improve working conditions, the changes have been coming hard and fast.
Robb, who worked on the Reagan administration’s litigation that led to the firing of more than 11,000 union air traffic controllers for staging an illegal strike in 1981 [and] was a Vermont employment lawyer, now oversees the agency’s 26 regional offices that investigate and prosecute violations of the National Labor Relations Act, didn’t waste any time setting a business-friendly agenda.
Hugh Murray, a management-side labor lawyer at McCarter & English in Hartford, said that the pendulum swing is more aggressive than in previous administrations, but only because it had swung so far in the opposite direction under Obama, and because Obama was hamstrung by a recalcitrant Republican Congress, he issued a number of pro-worker rules by executive order, which are easier to overturn, Murray noted.
Some unions are avoiding the NLRB altogether, knowing that if their case goes before the Trump-appointed board it could overturn worker-friendly precedents. Several worker advocacy groups have seized the moment to propose major overhauls to labor law, including exploring policy proposals to reimagine collective bargaining by sector instead of by employer, and to give workers seats on corporate boards, among other recommendations.
It’s not just a reaction to Trump, said Sharon Block, who runs the center with labor professor Benjamin Sachs, though she added he’s certainly making matters worse.
“The little power that workers have, this administration seems to be bound and determined to diminish even more,” said Block, who served on the NLRB board and was a labor adviser to President Obama. “The time for tinkering around the edges has past. What we really need is fundamental change.”
It's called reshoring, and what the hell were you guys doing for eight years other than sleeping on the job?
--more--"
Related: Labor Day 2038
It may be 2025, because they are "replacing humans with machines, and the biggest trend in manufacturing is that automation is irreversible."
Some have their doubts, but that is their weakness.
Time to get back to the office:
(cue music)
Meet Liu Qiangdong.
His boy Elroy!
"Even fishing and coal mining are not losing jobs as fast as the newspaper industry" by Evan Horowitz Globe Staff July 03, 2018
The newspaper industry has declined faster and fallen further than some of the most famously collapsing sectors of the American economy. Coal mining, steel manufacturing, fishing: They can’t match the job losses and wage erosion in the newspaper business over the past few decades.
Maybe it is the endle$$ $upremaci$m and agenda-pu$hing lies.
At the dawn of the 21st century, when the Internet was young and print advertising was still a viable source of revenue, newspapers employed more than 400,000 people across the country, in every state. The business was bigger than the motion picture industry, with as many total workers as you find in such coast-to-coast fixtures as bars and hair salons.
Since 2000, however, newspaper employment has fallen by more than 60 percent. That’s as big a fall in 18 years as the coal mining industry has suffered over the last 27 years, and while the job losses in steel and other much-eulogized American manufacturing sectors have started to level off, or even turn around, in recent years the newspaper industry has continued to shed roughly 1,000 jobs per month.
The real-world consequences of this collapse are increasingly clear: Nearly 300 English-language daily newspapers have disappeared from the US landscape in the past 20 years, cutting two-paper towns down to one while some smaller markets lose local coverage altogether.
Among other things, recent research suggests this has reduced the oversight of local officials and increased government waste.
Pffft!
Every ten years I'm reading the same stories regarding political patronage and corruption!
This self-aggrandizing, self-adulating, patting on the back isn't helping, either.
While you might have hoped that the decline of printed newspapers was being offset by a rise in Internet-based news coverage, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Direct comparison is tricky, because there are no equivalent industry data for “online news,” but a separate count of “reporters and correspondents” across print, broadcasting, and the Web has shown a steep decline in recent years.
If I'm going to go online to find news, I'm going to go somewhere else. That's the whole point of a paper.
Plus, even if writers were simply migrating from failing print outlets to thriving online outfits — which they are not — that would still leave a question about what’s happening to all of the other people who make the newspaper industry work: the folks who do everything from editing and photography to printing press maintenance and daily delivery.
And those local businesses or corporations that provide services, don't forget them!
You know, the food machine people and the janitorial staffs.
No state or major city has bucked this trend. Newspaper closures aren’t just happening in rural counties or struggling cities; they’re happening everywhere. Newspapers are — or used to be —everywhere. Big or small, rural or urban, coastal or central, every community needs information about vital local issues.
That's why the Globe is so disappointing. I already have a local paper for all that. I go to the Globe to tell me what is happening at a state and world level.
It's not what I want very often, and when it is something wanted the article is often a once-sided pos, but there I am.
With online-only sources struggling to fill so many gaps, one alternative is for philanthropic gifts and grants to make up for lost profits, essentially converting news from a business to something more like a nonprofit sector for the public good, but this, too, has been slow to materialize.
Except, "nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence" -- which means there won't be much of a conversion at all!
It's already a rich man's pre$$!!
Without some tractable approach, though, it’s not clear how far the job losses may extend, or how completely the news industry may eclipse steel, coal, and others as the great, declining industry of modern America.....
It was Iraq that did it.
--more--"
Oh, yeah, about the bo$$es:
"The private jets have begun clogging the jetways in Sun Valley, Idaho, which can only mean one thing: “Billionaire summer camp” has begun. The annual Allen & Company conference, the investment firm’s invite-only gathering of some of the world’s most powerful corporate titans, officially begins on Wednesday. Over the next week, the nation’s moguls will play golf, go white-water rafting, attend breakout sessions, and make decisions about the future of their respective media empires. And naturally, some of Boston’s own coterie of power players will be among them. Both Shari Redstone and CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves are on the guest list. The two have been locked in a legal battle, as the board of CBS has attempted to strip Redstone’s family investment arm, National Amusements Inc., of its voting control in the media company. Meanwhile, Redstone had sought to create a merger between CBS and Viacom (which the Redstone family also owns). The case goes to trial in Delaware in three months, so one expects things could get testy.
That is presuming Moonves is still around.
Patriots owner Bob Kraft and John Henry and Linda Pizzuti Henry, owners of the Red Sox (and the Boston Globe) are also expected to make their way to Idaho, where Bloomberg reports they’ll rub elbows with other sports bigwigs like Gary Bettman , commissioner of the National Hockey League, and agent Casey Wasserman, who’s helming the organization overseeing the upcoming 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Cable tycoon John Malone, who holds major stakes in Charter Communications and Discovery Inc., is also rumored to be looking to scoop up regional sports networks while wandering the grounds, according to the Wall Street Journal. Allen and Co.’s guest list rarely changes from year to year, so you can bet longtime attendee Steve Pagliuca will also be on hand. Last year, the Celtics co-owner and co-chairman of the Boston-based private equity firm said in an interview with Bloomberg that the sky-high stock valuations meant private equity firms had to work harder, and that Bain would “stick to [its] knitting,” and focus on making deals that can transform and grow companies.
First thing they will advise is to incorporate in South Africa.
Wayfair’s CEO Niraj Shah is also attending the conference. Stay tuned to see if he ends up in meetings with his fellow e-commerce scion, Jeff Bezos, who has been ramping up Amazon’s housewares efforts as of late. Other media moguls expected to turn up at the confab include Fox’s Rupert Murdoch, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple’s Tim Cook. Also on the guest list: Walmart CEO Doug McMillon , General Motors’ Mary Barra and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, who is scheduled to host a Q&A over the weekend.
They can all $hare an Apple.
The conference, which is in its 35th year, often ends up being the staging ground for massive media deals. In 1995, the details of Disney’s acquisition of ABC/Capital Partners were hashed out there, as was the 2000 Time Warner/AOL merger and Comcast’s 2011 takeover of NBCUniversal. The mountainous Idaho landscape was also the site of Bezos’s first steps toward acquiring the Washington Post. As for the Idaho locals, they were looking forward to a lucrative week of baby-sitting, catering, and guiding gigs, many of which offer “boosted wages and, often, a fat tip,” according to Mark Deereporting in the Idaho Mountain Express, but the Sun Valley Resort, which plays host to the spectacle, won’t divulge any details on the guests or the agenda for the week. “That message has been the same for 35 years: Everybody’s here, and nobody’s talking,” Dee writes."
Can't hear them over the sound of the machines anyway.
Turn out the lights when you leave, will ya'?
(They were still on in the morning, and I suppose you can't read when you are terrified and in the dark)
I would quit that job if I were them:
"American workers’ willingness to quit — often for better pay — hits a 17-year high" by Christopher Rugaber Associated Press July 10, 2018
WASHINGTON — The proportion of US workers who quit their jobs in May reached the highest level in 17 years, a sign that more people are confident they can find a new job, probably at higher pay.
Get those resumes ready, reporters.
Businesses also advertised fewer jobs in May than in the previous month, but the tally of open positions outnumbered the ranks of the unemployed for only the second time in the past two decades, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
The figures reflect a strong job market driven by optimistic employers seeking to expand their workforces. Last week’s jobs report showed that businesses hired workers at a healthy pace and the unemployment rate remained very low, at 4 percent.
The percentage of workers quitting their jobs reached 2.4 percent in May, the highest since April 2001. More quits are a sign of a strong job market because workers typically leave jobs for a new one that pays more. Workers who switch jobs see larger raises than those who stay in the same position, government data show.
Faced with more open jobs than there are unemployed workers, businesses are becoming a bit less selective in their hiring, said Josh Howarth, president of the mid-Atlantic district for the staffing firm Robert Half International.
‘‘Companies are slowly but surely realizing that they have no choice but to be more flexible,’’ he said. If an applicant fits with a company’s culture and is highly motivated to learn, businesses are now more willing to train new hires to help them gain needed skills. Still, Howarth said, companies are moving more slowly than they did in the last strong job market, in the late 1990s. That probably reflects a lingering caution left over from the Great Recession, he said.....
That was ten years ago!
--more--"
The voice of the working man has gone silent:
"Ed Schultz, blunt-spoken political talk-show host, dies at 64" by Richard Sandomir New York Times July 06, 2018
NEW YORK — Ed Schultz, a former conservative radio show host whose politics had moved left before he joined MSNBC’s nightly lineup in 2009 and then shifted again when he was hired by RT America, Russia’s state-financed international cable network, died Thursday at his home in Washington. He was 64.
His death was announced by RT America, which did not state a cause. His stepdaughter Megan Espelien said he had heart problems.
Mr. Schultz, a burly former college football quarterback with a booming voice, ranged across the political spectrum during his radio and television career, achieving his highest visibility as a blunt-spoken liberal and champion of blue-collar America as host of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC.
In the 1990s, he had his own conservative radio talk show broadcast regionally from Fargo, N.D., but by 2000, when he announced he was a Democrat, he, and his show, had begun turning to the left, gaining listeners even while others may have dropped him.
Although it had nowhere near the listenership of shows hosted by conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the Schultz show grew in popularity as he established himself as a sharp critic of president George W. Bush.
When MSNBC hired him to host his own show in 2009, he joined an unabashedly liberal lineup that featured Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, among others. He had moments of bombast, from calling vice president Dick Cheney an “enemy of the country” to declaring President Vladimir Putin of Russia, or “Putie,” a hero to Republicans.
And it was Cheney who leaked things to the pre$$, then showed up on Sunday morning talk shows to make the case for invading Iraq -- citing the very same disinformation that was blared from the front pages of the papers!
He was suspended by MSNBC for a week without pay in 2011 after calling the conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, on his radio show, a “right-wing slut.” (He was responding to her criticism of president Barack Obama for drinking a pint of beer in Dublin instead of flying to the scene of a tornado disaster in Joplin, Mo.)
She kind of is, and now has her own show on Fox, right after Hannity.
Mr. Schultz apologized, and Ingraham accepted the apology.
The ratings of “The Ed Show,” which was broadcast on weeknights, never soared, and he moved to weekend duty before being given a weekday slot. His and other underperforming shows were canceled in 2015. In April, he told a National Review podcast that he had been fired for supporting Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primaries.
Hey, they yanked Donahue.
At MSNBC, Mr. Schultz was known for his embrace of the labor movement at a time when the mainstream media was all but ignoring it, said David Shuster, a former MSNBC host, in a Twitter post Thursday.
They still do -- unless it is part of an agenda they are pushing, like undocumented illegals that work in construction and clean the hotels.
“Ed,” he said, “focused on American blue-collar workers most of the MSM had long forgotten.”
--more--"
UPDATE:
10 people shot at San Bernardino apartment complex
You make want to take a second look at that, and I told you Jacksonville was just the beginning.
